Summer Fresh Salad Rolls

I love summer. We have had it pretty good so far this year and despite this weekend being a bit windy, cloudy and raining off and on, it’s been a good day.

I went to the Farmers’ Market and picked up a few things, then hit up the Asian Market nearby to grab a few ingredients for a recipe I hope to make either tonight or tomorrow.

I had a weird breakfast/lunch sort of thing at 9:00 which consisted of hashbrowns, fruit and toast but by noon I was pretty hungry again.

I felt like salad rolls but none of the garden fresh lettuce from last week’s CSA pickup was left. So, I improvised. There is no actual ‘salad’ or lettuce in these rolls but I quite like how they turned out, even better than normal rolls.

Heat water in a small saucepan. When it comes to a rolling boil, turn off the heat and add rice noodles. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Using a fork, break up the noodles a bit and re-cover until noodles are tender. Drain and let cool to room temperature.

Prepare your workstation so all your ingredients are at hand.

Fill a pie plate or similar shallow dish with cool water.

Dip one rice paper round in the water and let excess drip off.

Place on a cutting board and layer ingredients in the following order:

Herbs (choose one type of herb per roll for best flavour)

Rice noodles

Cucumbers

Red Pepper

Carrots

Purple Cabbage

Roll up like a burrito: once all the way over then tuck the sides in and continue to roll to the end.

*I tried the purple cabbage two ways. First, I left half of it shredded and raw. The other half I heated in a skillet and sauteed with 1 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar. (I was going for a pickled cabbage- type flavour, but didn’t really notice a taste difference between either, so I’d suggest leaving it raw for the crunch.

I honestly thought I’d prefer the mint roll the best but the dill one blew my socks off. That one I thought was not your typical flavour and it was so fresh and tasty with the purple cabbage. Of course, the Thai basil was amazing too.